NATO leaders look for fresh start with Putin

By Oleg Shchedrov and Mark John

BUCHAREST (Reuters) - NATO leaders meet Russia's Vladimir Putin on Friday, hoping to begin a thaw in chilly relations with their former Cold War foe and lay the ground for a new start with his successor.

But there was uncertainty about how Putin would respond to NATO's summit decision on Thursday to promise former Soviet republics Ukraine and Georgia a future in the alliance, even though it did not put them on an immediate track to membership.

Initial Kremlin reaction was caustic but not explosive. The Russian Foreign Ministry published a letter in which Putin assured rebels in breakaway Georgian regions he would not abandon them if Tbilisi cuddled up to the West.

U.S. President George W. Bush, who like Putin is in the twilight of his presidency, will follow the NATO-Russia summit with a weekend meeting at the Russian leader's holiday home he has called a last chance for a "heart-to-heart".

Out to polish a legacy tarnished by the Iraq war, Bush wants to raise ideas for a "strategic framework" agreement between the United States and Russia during his stay with Putin a day later at the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

The Kremlin said Putin had come to the Romanian capital determined to focus on the positive and play down disputes with the West ranging from Kosovo to U.S. missile shield plans.

It will be the first time NATO leaders have hosted a Russian president since 2002 and could help them gauge how much power Putin intends to retain after Dmitry Medvedev, his protege, takes over as president next month.

Few NATO allies dare to predict how Putin, who in the past year has accused the West of wanting to start a new arms race and threatened to target nuclear weapons on NATO aspirant Ukraine, would behave in the two-hour session.